It didn't take long to find Echo. She was a little way off the path, crouched contentedly over the mangled remains of a snowshoe hare, crunching happily on bone.
A few minutes after that, Skjor let out a low grunt of satisfaction, pointing to a set of tracks in the crusted snow. They were massive, splayed, and sunk deep—instantly recognizable as troll-prints.
Following them was no challenge at all.
For half an hour, they waded through deepening snowdrifts and navigated a narrow, winding passage squeezed between two sheer rock faces. The path finally opened up, revealing a shallow cave, more of a natural burrow, gouged into the mountainside.
The entrance was marked by a grisly display: stacks of bones, picked clean and piled high. Most were from goats and deer, but one skull, resting near the top, was unmistakably human.
"Looks like we found our target," Skjor muttered, his voice a low rumble.
Torin nodded, his gaze fixed on the dark opening. "That we did." He glanced at Skjor. "Any idea how we'll deal with its natural healing? Fire?"
Skjor shrugged, a predatory grin spreading across his face. "Normally, aye. Oil and a torch does the trick quick enough. But where's the fun in that?" He hefted his sword. "We just need to bleed it enough, or kill it in one fell swoop. Overwhelm its body's ability to knit itself back together."
Torin let out a sigh he seemed to have been holding since they left Whiterun. "Of course. Why make it easy?" He turned his attention back to the cave. "Let's at least lure it out first. Give ourselves room to move and attack from multiple sides."
Skjor gave a curt nod. He drew his sword with a soft ring of steel, the sound unnaturally loud in the muffled silence of the mountain. He settled his shield on his arm and started forward, his movements deliberate and heavy.
Torin fell in step behind him, his own warhammer feeling both familiar and terribly inadequate in his grip.
They crept closer, senses straining for any sound from within the darkness. They reached the mouth of the burrow, the stench of old blood and rot washing over them.
And then they froze.
Lying on the ground just inside the entrance was the troll. It was a white-furred behemoth, easily half again Skjor's height even while prone. A third, milky eye sat in the center of its bestial forehead, and two thick, yellowed tusks protruded from its slack jaw. But it wasn't moving. It wasn't breathing.
Even in death, the creature exuded a menacing, primal presence. And running from a deep, precise gash across its throat was a pool of dark, congealed blood that had long since stopped steaming in the cold air.
Doubtful, Skjor took a cautious step forward and prodded the motionless troll's flank with the tip of his sword. The heavy body didn't so much as twitch. His frown deepened into a scowl. "Dead. Stone cold."
Torin quickly lowered his hammer, his eyes scanning the trampled snow around the cave entrance. He was looking for tracks—paw prints, boot prints, anything that could explain this. But the area was a mess of their own footprints and the troll's.
What he did find, leading away from the cave and further up the mountain, was a trail of the troll's own massive prints, each one dark and glistening with a spray of its own blood.
It had been mortally wounded elsewhere and had crawled back here to die.
He was just about to call out to Skjor when a flash of movement caught his eye. Echo, having grown bored with her rabbit, was now enthusiastically chasing a red fox through a patch of scrub.
He opened his mouth to call her back, then hesitated. Skjor was right. This was what she was built for. She'd be fine. They'd find her when they were done.
Letting out a resigned sigh, he turned back to Skjor. "Looks like the troll crawled back here to die. The blood trail leads off that way." He gestured vaguely up the slope. "You done examining the corpse?"
Skjor straightened up, his expression grim. "It's a clean cut. Straight across the throat, deep enough to sever everything that needs severing. This is the work of someone who knows exactly what they're doing. No mere beast did this."
Torin hummed thoughtfully. "So, do you want to follow the trail, see who our mysterious benefactor is? Or do we call it a day, take the easy coin, and head back?"
"I say we call it a day," Skjor grunted without hesitation. "This is easy coin, and I don't look a gift horse in the mouth."
A grin spread across Torin's face. "My thoughts exactly—"
The words died in his throat. A sudden, cold foreboding swept over him, raising the hairs on his arms. Easy coin. The phrase echoed in his mind, and with it came the polished, smiling faces of Larethil and Anariel. The pieces clicked into place with terrifying speed.
The convenient meeting, the insistence on following them, the strangely eager departure right before they found the troll's lair...
His eyes widened. His head snapped up, his gaze sharply surveying the rocky cliffs surrounding the clearing.
There. On a ledge overlooking them, stood the female elf, Anariel. She was no longer the humble pilgrim. Her posture was rigid, her face a mask of cold concentration. In both hands, she held a gnarled staff, and hovering at its tip, a sphere of roiling fire grew, gathering heat that made the air above it shimmer.
They hadn't been paid to kill a troll. They'd been led into a trap.
Torin's body moved before his mind could fully process the threat. A surge of magicka flowed through him, weaving a hasty Ironflesh spell to harden his skin as he lunged toward Skjor.
"Look out!" he yelled, but the warning was useless.
The massive fireball was already screaming through the air, a comet of pure destruction aimed directly at the veteran warrior. There was no time to push Skjor aside. Gritting his teeth, Torin planted himself in the projectile's path, letting his hammer and shield fall to the snow.
He threw both hands forward, palms out, and poured every ounce of his will into erecting a shimmering, translucent Steadfast Ward.
The impact was deafening. A concussive WHOMP of force and heat slammed into him. He let out a raw, guttural roar, his boots sliding backward in the slush as he fought to hold the barrier.
For a heart-stopping second, the ward held, the fireball flattening against it in a spray of angry orange magic. Then, both spells shattered simultaneously in a blast of searing energy.
The force threw Torin off his feet. He landed hard on his back, the air driven from his lungs. The smell of singed leather and burnt hair filled his nostrils, and his hands screamed in pain, red and blistered.
The snow around him had vanished, replaced by a circle of steaming, blackened earth.
His mind, reeling from the blast, was already scrambling for a plan. How do we get her down from there?
He didn't get a chance to think of one. Skjor, having ducked the worst of the blast, was already moving. With a determined glare fixed on the cliff, he dashed past Torin, his sword held low and ready.
Torin didn't try to stop him. Splitting up was their only play. The female elf was far enough away that they could potentially dodge any more fireballs. But...
A cold dread, sharper than the mountain air, pierced through the pain. Where is the other one?
His eyes frantically scanned the clearing. There was no sign of Larethil.
Then he saw it. Some distance to Skjor's right flank, the pristine snow shifted. A single footprint depressed into the white powder, as if formed from nothing. Then another. And another.
They were moving fast, cutting a straight, silent, and invisible path directly toward Skjor's unprotected side.
His throat was raw, but Torin forced the air from his lungs in a desperate shout.
"SKJOR! TO YOUR RIGHT! HE'S INVISIBLE!"
Skjor spun on his heel, his shield coming up just in time to block a vicious dagger thrust from the now-visible Larethil, who had materialized out of thin air. The assassin's other hand was already in motion, a second blade flashing toward Skjor's exposed side. With a grunt of effort, Skjor slammed the boss of his shield forward, forcing the elf back a precious step.
Above them, Anariel's staff glowed brightly, another sphere of fire swelling at its tip.
Larethil's body flashed with a surge of green energy—a Haste spell—and he lunged forward again, his movements a blur. His attacks weren't meant to kill, not yet. They were a flurry of feints and jabs, designed to harry and distract, to keep Skjor rooted to the spot.
Skjor tried to disengage, to put distance between himself and the impending fireball, but the elf was a ghost, sticking to him like a burr. "You damned fool!" Skjor roared, parrying another lightning-fast strike. "Do you intend to die with me?!"
The elf said nothing, his face a mask of cold focus, his speed making him a near-impossible target to shake.
But Torin saw the plan clearly. He recognized the Haste spell, and the elf's intentions were as transparent as his earlier invisibility. He wasn't a fanatic willing to die for a kill. He was a predator using his speed to corral his prey into the kill zone, intending to dart away at the very last second and leave Skjor to be incinerated.
"Shit," Torin cursed, his hammer and shield already back in his burned, aching hands. The leather grip grated against his blisters, sending jolts of fresh pain up his arms. Gritting his teeth, he ignored it and charged, putting all his weight into a brutal, sweeping swing aimed at the assassin's back.
He didn't need to land the hit. He just needed to break the elf's concentration.
Larethil, his senses heightened by magic, heard the rush of air and the crunch of snow behind him. A split-second calculation flashed through his mind: press the attack and get his spine shattered by a warhammer, or live to fight another day.
He clicked his tongue in frustration and, with the unnatural speed granted by his spell, twisted and leaped backward, clearing a wide arc just as the fireball left Anariel's staff.
Freed from the relentless pressure, Skjor didn't hesitate. He threw himself into a desperate, diving roll away from the fireball's trajectory. The sphere of condensed flame slammed into the ground where he'd just been standing, exploding in a wave of heat and force that sent snow and dirt flying.
Keeping a healthy distance from both Skjor and the deadly assassin, Torin focused a surge of magicka into his hands. A soft golden glow enveloped his blistered palms as a Healing spell knit the worst of the damage, the pain receding to a dull, manageable throb. His mind raced, coldly assessing their odds.
The situation was dire. The female elf, Anariel, held the high ground, a veritable artillery piece ready to blast them to cinders. They had to get her down from there, but with Larethil on the ground, that was a suicide run.
Their only real option was to split up—one to brave the assassin's blades and the mage's fire to scale the cliff, the other to stay and endure a two-pronged assault down here.
Skjor was a rock, but he lacked the speed to pin down the magically-hasted elf. Torin, even with Haste, was painfully aware he was outmatched by the assassin's skill. But he was agile, and he could disengage if he had to.
He opened his mouth to shout the plan to Skjor—to tell him to go for the mage—when a flicker of movement on the cliff face caught his eye.
A small, furry shadow was creeping low and silent through the rocks, a patch of brown fur against the white snow, moving with a predator's instinct toward the unsuspecting Anariel.
A fierce, wild grin split Torin's face. A new variable had entered the equation.
He turned his attention back to Larethil, his voice dripping with mockery. "You two sure seem to want Skjor dead, going through all this trouble." He gestured broadly with his hammer. "What, did he kill your mommy and daddy in the war? Is this some pathetic little revenge fantasy?"
The taunt was crude, but its purpose wasn't to wound. It was to hold their attention, to keep every eye fixed on him and Skjor, and away from the small, determined bear making her way up the mountain.
...
I'm motivated by praise and interaction, so be sure to leave a like, power stone, or whatever kind of shendig this site uses, and more importantly do share you thoughts on the chapter in the comment section!
Want more chapters? Then consider subscribing to my pat rēon. You can read ahead for as little as $1 and it helps me a lot!
-> (pat rēon..com / wicked132)
You can also always come and say hi on my discord server
-> (disc ord..gg / sEtqmRs5y7)- or hit me up at - Wicked132#5511 - and I'll add you myself)